Flexible polymer substrates are manufactured using a polymer base material that is optionally laminated or coated with one or more polymer films or vacuum deposited coatings. These laminated substrate stacks are commonly used in flexible packaging associated with PV, OLED, LCDs and patterned Thin Film Transistor (TFT) electronics because of their low cost.
In order to promote flexible glass structures as an alternate technology selection, the real and perceived limitations of mechanical reliability performance associated with glass, a brittle material, must be overcome and demonstrated. Flexible glass substrates offer several technical advantages over flexible polymer technology. One technical advantage is the ability of the glass to serve as a moisture or gas barrier, a primary degradation mechanism in outdoor electronics. A second advantage is in its potential to reduce overall package size (thickness) and weight through the reduction or elimination of one or more package substrate layers. Another advantage is having excellent surface qualities associated with glass that can be cleaned easily. Thus, if the real and perceived limitations of mechanical reliability performance associated with glass can be overcome, the use of flexible glass structures can be advanced.